Dateline:
Madisonville, Kentucky
“Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is
all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive
tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race,
religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents
taught you to accept diversity.”
Roger Ebert
“No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All
collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”
Elie Wiesel
For citizens of rural areas to
be critical of Washington bureaucracy is as old as our constitution. Here in
rural Kentucky, stoic conservatism has held sway in the court of public opinion
for as long as the area has produced some of the world’s best bourbon whiskey;
forever. What is startlingly different, and scary; is the passion of the raw
hatred for the current President of the United States.
Label this new species of man
that I have found to dominate the political climate of today’s rural
America: Maleus Americanus Crustius, a
loose Latin translation for “Angry White American Males.” The solitary target
of their anger is the nations’ first chief executive of color, Barack Obama.
In my many conversations in
taverns, churches and every other type of rural meeting hall in between; I
found their hatred of anything associated with the name “Obama” to be
pathological to the level that it often scared me. I never held a discussion
with these run of the mill white male everyday hard working and law abiding
citizens that involved President Obama that I found spiritually uplifting. On
the contrary, I would part their company depressed.
Roaming the country side for
the last three years, I often found great inspiration from interacting with the
everyday citizens of this great nation. The exception was anytime the name
Obama was thrown into the debate with even the smallest gathering of rural white
males. Without fail, an unsettling form of hate took over as “Obama Paranoia”
raised its ugly head. Any chance for the give and take of compromise was now
off the table.
In the rural areas of America,
amongst the suddenly vocal demographic of the underemployed and undereducated
white male, Obama is the root and the cause for anything and everything bad in
one’s life.
Granted, they have always been
with us. Since the days of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew’s “silent majority” in
the crazy social upheaving decade of the 1960’s - the white undereducated male
- feeling left out of a changing society, disengaged and bitter, has played a
role on the nation’s political landscape. But somehow, today, the distrust of
President Obama just feels different. It is palpable to even the most oblivious
observer. The pure hatred is both disconcerting and disappointing.
The election of a black
President, according to many Obama critics, has removed forever any historical
white responsibility for past racially motivated discrimination. I heard often
from whites, “now they got a black president, elected twice with the help of a
majority of white voters. So, no more using racial prejudice as an excuse. The
time has come for the race card to be permanently retired.”
The omnipresent right wing
media “haters” stalk both the print and social media of the nation’s airwaves
and cyberspace; evoking from their conservative audiences’ a full blown rage
for anything “Obama.” Their potent fury, when unleashed by the mere mention of
the “O” word, will overwhelm any adversary wishing to engage in a discussion
based on fact and logic, not hate and rumor. From tax policy to the nation’s
medical services - spit out with distain as “Obama Care” - anything in American not up to the highest
standard is always the fault of the “Muslim who was born in Kenya,” residing at
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
According to a 2014 Quinnipiac
Poll, President Obama's support among uneducated white male’s has fallen
steadily over the first six years’ of his presidency, plummeting to 29%, which
is the lowest of any Democratic President in history.
White men with no education
above a high school diploma--like any group of adults without college
degrees--tend to land toward the lower end of the income scale. Relative to the
policies of the Republican Party and their slant to the best interests of
business and commerce, Obama and the Democratic policies tend to offer more of
a helping hand to lower-income people. Thus, one would predict that most
citizens without a college degree would more favorably matriculate toward the
policies of the Democrats and Obama.
But, the polls prove
overwhelming and beyond a doubt that the above assumption is not true, if the
disaggregated demographic is rural white males.
Why?
According to Ronald Brownstein
at The National Journal, the answer is this:
“Many [working-class whites] are culturally-conservative; more are
deeply skeptical of government (including [Obama's] health care plan); and most
are struggling in the sustained economic downturn. Polls also consistently show
many working-class whites are deeply uneasy about the propulsive racial and
ethnic changes that Obama uniquely embodies.”
There were many times that I
found the negativity directed at Barack Obama to be so absurd, all one could do
was laugh. One die hard good old boy acquaintance of mine, who took his
marching orders from the conservative media hate machine serious – and rote -
became enraged when he heard a news teaser on talk radio railing against Obama
for his war on “White Christmas.” By happenstance it was only a couple of weeks
before the most festive of Christian holidays. He ranted on social media for a
solid two days against Obama and the “damn liberals” plan to ruin a perfectly
fine tradition like “White Christmas” on the mere premise they didn’t like
anything containing the word “white.” Finally, it was pointed out to him that
in his outrage he had failed to hear the correct annunciation on the radio and
it was “White Christians” that the President was accused of waging war on. White
Christmas was still safe, at least for now. Damn liberals.
The most bizarre confrontation
I had with a conservative did not occur on the open road but through social
media. Seated in front of my home office computer, I received a message over
Facebook that said only for an introduction, “Fu#@ you, Almany.” The man had
taken offense to what he felt was a liberal slant of one of my Facebook posts
on a mutual friend’s wall. The founding fathers, evidently, had not meant to
protect speech, if it came from a liberal, when they wrote that pesky first
amendment.
He lived in Cherokee Village,
AR and was, he told me, a long time radio and TV personality having written,
produced and performed for years in the country music business. “I have had
numerous Grammy nominations,” he told me. Recently, he had run for state
representative but lost to a “damn liberal over in Pocahontas, Almany, and your
kind of a town. You should have stayed there.” His anger oozing through cyber
space was clearly felt; my screen seemed to be almost smoking, my keys hot to
the touch.
I asked if he could personal
message me a phone number and I would like to interview him and get his
thoughts for a book I was writing. “I bet that is one hell of a book. How the
hell could anyone as dumb as you write a book? Yeah, I will do your interview,
asshole, I am not afraid of you,” he stated on my public Facebook page.
After several more rounds of cyber
space banter and insults, he finally sent me a phone number. I called and
introduced myself. “Why don’t we just meet in person,” he opened with, “that
way I can kick your liberal ass.” Before we advance beyond a first date, I
said, let’s see what we have in common.
We talked for two hours.
Five minutes in he let down. “I
am having a hard time disliking you,” he said with a laugh, “and I am trying
real hard to dislike you.” You don’t say, I thought. “I got to watch it,” he
said, “had a stroke a couple of years ago.” Who would have thought that?
It took a while, but we did
find some common ground. “I am pro-life,” I told him, “the biggest mistake the
Democratic Party made was selling its soul to the radical women’s movement of
the late 60’s. I bet that surprises you?”
“I think the role of the government
in some areas needs to be expanded,” my new friend said. “We need more support
for the arts and music in our schools, for example. And I did not support the Republican
party line with the Patriot Act. I felt Ashcroft went too far. Most Tea Party members
felt the same. Now, I bet that surprises you. You know, I have lots of friends
who are Democrats,” he confessed in an almost whisper.
The man was obviously
intelligent and talented. His resume in the music business was impressive. I
googled him to verify what he had told me. He was legit, but a little off
kilter – on a good day. He laughed but agreed when I gave him that assessment.
“I had a radio show out of Philadelphia a few years ago and I always told my
partner when he showed me some article with all kinds of facts, ‘you read the
facts and I will scream the truth.’ Yeah, I am opinionated.”
I already knew the answer, but
I asked anyway. “What is the biggest problem facing our nation today?”
“That damn bastard in the
White House and you can quote me word for word on that one. You know he was
raised and schooled by a communist. Read his book. He has been raised to hate
white people. Liberals I hate em. Are you sure you are a liberal, I am having a
hard time hating you,” he told me for the third time. “His domestic policy,” he
continued, “is horrible and his foreign policy is worse. We cannot get him out
of that office fast enough. He supports socialism at home and his Muslim
brothers around the world. The man will not rest until he has taken away all of
our rights and made this a nation under Muslim law.”
And for two hours around and
around we went. “We need to sit down and have a beer sometime,” he said, “but
you being a liberal I know I will have to buy it.” Or, I suggested, “We could
put it on the government’s tab.”
It became a point of pride
with me that I would never end a discussion with a conservative supporter
without a hand shake and an amiable parting. My country music producing new
friend was the most hostile of anyone I encountered, but within five minutes we
had found common ground that allowed for a civil conversation and a healthy
debate. Our encounter, that started with so much anger, is the perfect
antidotal example that gives me hope that the citizens of this nation will, as
we always have, find compromise to our differences through the democratic
process.
When I grew up during the cold
war years of the 1950s’ and early 1960’s “communist” was the boogie man word of
choice. We knew it was the ultimate derogatory insult to be hurled during an
adversarial argument. It did not matter what the subject was nor that we as
pre-teen kids had no idea what the word meant. We just knew it was as bad as it
gets. Today, “Liberal,” is the new boogie man word of the uninformed.
“Look he said,” as we prepared
to end our phone conversation, “I got a bad temper and sometimes I lose it. I
know I gave you a good cussin at the start, but you are a good egg, so no hard
feelings. You know, you are not going to change my mind and I am not going to
change yours, but it was good to talk about things.”
If that is in fact, fact, I
suggested a pragmatic compromise. “Suppose on Election Day next November
instead of nullifying each other’s vote, why don’t we just agree to both stay
home and save on the gas.”
“Can’t do it,” he said. “If
you don’t vote you have no right to complain about the government and no way am
I going four years not complaining about the government.”
Touché. How can you not like a
right wing extremist with that sort of populist logic?
A Lunch Time Panel Discussion
“When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family
neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see
the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West
Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky - in the big cities, too, for that matter.”
Maya Angelou
We are gathered with the noon
time rush crowd of the Country Cupboard restaurant in Madisonville, KY. I made
six at our table, an outsider wanting opinions. The other five were regulars
with the midweek lunchtime crowd and knew each other well. We were all male, we
were all white and judging from the size of the meal’s tab that I picked up, we
were all hungry.
I got them warmed up.
I tell my mostly conservative
Republican lunch mates that I see today two major problem groups conservative
politicians must deal with. First, being the very misnamed and misinformed gang
known as the Tea Party; whose inflammatory rhetoric has managed to attract to
their ranks almost every bigot looking for a platform to rant from. I
challenged my new lunch friends to deny that this group, and their cause, has
not been hijacked by the billionaire Koch brothers whose entire agenda is based
on keeping the 1% of the wealthiest from paying their fair share of taxes.
Second, the right wing
Christian religious fanatics. These self -appointed guardians of the nation’s
morality would gladly take us back to the dark days of the middle ages of
intolerance. These zealots claim divine intent and biblical justification in
their attempts to spread hate and divisiveness amongst us by inventing convenient
enemies. They demonize anyone who is “different”: blacks, gays, women and other
religious beliefs. They are an insulting affront to anyone who believes in our
constitution, I lectured.
My goal accomplished, I sit
back as the chips angrily fall and the frustration erupts with everyone wanting
to talk at once. I fain not knowing what I have just done, ignoring the passion
I have evoked, turning my intentions to carving up my chicken fried steak. It
is time to boost my cholesterol levels and listen to America at its worst.
The Libertarian
“Have Republicans Ever Hated a
President More Than Barack Obama,” I asked the group?
“Yes. The hatred towards
Obamanation doesn't hold a candle to the hatred of Lincoln. Lincoln was hated
by both the north and the south, republicans and democrats, liberals and
conservatives. He is, in fact, the most vilified president of all time.”
“And you're thinking, no, not
Lincoln, everyone loves Lincoln. It took the Republican Party 30 to 40 years
and a constant barrage of lies and propaganda to turn the tide of hatred that
the American people had for Lincoln.”
“If, when you hear Lincoln,
you immediately think, Honest Abe, then you have bought the lie.”
“No, I'm not a Republican. No,
I'm not a Democrat. I'm a Libertarian. From the Libertarian perspective it's
truly humorous to watch the squabbling between Democrats and Republicans, who, in
the end, both want the same thing -- control. Republicans want to control
people; Democrats want to control corporations. Libertarians don't want to
control anyone.”
“Choosing between Republicans
with tendency towards fascism and Democrats’ with their tendency towards
communism is like choosing between cherry- and lime-flavored cyanide.”
The Tea Partier
Do Whites hate Obama because
of his skin color, I quarried the group? I know from painful past experience
that when I throw this card on the table, the gloves come off.
“You are asking the question
backwards,” George told me. He would prove to be the most outspoken and angry
of the five. He was in his late 40’s and told me he was in between jobs, again,
having lost his most recent one because of the “Marxist President we have.”
“You should ask why Obama
hates white people,” George responded to my question. Then, without provoking
from me, George answered the question he asked of me, for me. So, I just
listened.
“Obama has a hatred for white
people because of the way the British treated his grandfather in Kenya. Even
more important, he is a devoted Communist and one of the guiding principles of
destroying a free government so it can be replaced with a Communist one is to
divide that country along racial and economic lines - rich from poor, black
from white etc. He is just being a good Marxist. Karl Marx gave this same
advice to Lincoln prior to our Civil War in correspondence with him.”
“The Civil War was never about
slavery; it was about state's rights as guaranteed us by the tenth amendment.
In effect he (Lincoln) was telling the states and by proxy the people, that
they could not be trusted with freedom because they might abuse it therefore
all power should be concentrated in a central government - exactly what our
founders fought a bloody war against. In other words, their bold experiment in
Democracy lasted four score and seven years and has been on a downward slide
ever since.”
The Constitutionalist
How will history record
Obama’s eight years in the White House, I asked?
“The Son of a Bitch should not
have had 8 years,” Joseph said. Around my age, mid-50’s, Joseph was a local
business man involved in sales at a time when sales were not good. He saw that
as just another reason to disparage the performance of the President.
“In addition, Mr. Obama's
support to end the right to keep and bear arms through injecting himself into
the gun control debate was abysmal - especially when he stood behind the
survivors of Sandy Hook, browbeating Americans into feeling guilty for a
situation that was caused by a lunatic. He calls himself a Constitutional
scholar and his leadership has proven him to be anything BUT a scholar in this
regard.”
“Patriots do not vote for,
follow or obey Tyrants and Mr. Obama is the worst manifestation of tyranny in
the United States since we expelled the crown.”
The Conspirator
Larry was 27 and a recent
graduate of a state university. Trained in the field of management, with the
down swing in the economy, he had not been able to land meaningful employment
that he felt utilized his training, nor his abilities. He was getting by,
barely, he said, as a part time handy man. He had a lot of time to read, he
said. I was to deduce Larry also had a lot of time to brood.
“I think over the last 40
years I have been through the omission of persecution as well as racial
bigotry. We have activists like this Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson that
transpire every event into a racially motivated situation. We have insane
people like Lewis Farrakhan that can fill up the Pontiac Silver Dome talking
his lecture to 80 thousand African Americans about the easy and most effective
way to kill the white man. In the eyes of our nation this is called propaganda
as well as anarchy. But in the realm it is a terrorist attempt and
indoctrination of recruits.”
“Barack Obama is without a
doubt one of the most racist individuals so far, after this horrible killing of
this young man in Florida, the Travon Williams (sic) incident. Al Sharpton as
his usual racist behavior has already inspired it as a racist event; the black
community is already at super madness at this incident. But that is what Al
Sharpton is all about. He has and will keep trying to create a racist war. He
will not stop until he succeeds. Obama states on national TV that if he had a
son he would want him to be like Travon Williams (sic). He knew that the black
community was on the verge of a nationwide racist war over this. And he
escalates it even worse announcing this to the public. He knew what he was
doing and what it would lead up to. They have already been protesting this in
Pontiac, MI as well as Detroit MI, two of the worst places to start up a racial
event.”
“Obama is nothing more than a
smooth talker that came out of the closet. One can only tell that he doesn’t
care for the black community or the white community, all he was in it for was
to be in the history books and bail out. But he had showed the world one thing
that a black man can screw up a country as easily as a white man can.”
“Yes, Obama is a racist. I
have been around too many to not notice this one can be judged, but if you’re
without sin cast the first stone. Obama has sat at this table and drank from
that same blood glassed offered cup as his introduction to a bi- racist. This I
know for a fact and I would love to get on a debate in person on national TV
with him over his racial tendencies.”
“But for people like Al
Sharpton and Jessie Jackson and let’s not forget Ralph Abernathy as linked to
Farrakhan. Your racist times will end when the black community figures out they
have a brain of their own and don’t need you to sabotage their minds with false
hopes to line your pockets with blood stained money. So, Mr. Obama, welcome to
the back of the bus.”
I asked Larry how many black
people he knew on a personal basis, interacted with on a regular basis. “Don’t need to know them,” he reasoned, “I
know how they are.”
The Realist
I noticed on Thomas’ right
bicep a tattoo that appeared to be recently inked. Strange I thought, for
someone his age with no other visible body art work. Even more oddly strange
was the subject of the tattoo; a typewriter. I ask him why a typewriter?
“Because,” he said with a laugh, “it symbolizes me; old and obsolete, but in
truth, still working just fine.” I immediately liked Thomas.
By just following the menu
clues, before he said one word, I knew I had an ally. He had been the only one
of the six of us not to order the day’s special of chicken fried steak. He had
chosen a tuna salad for his mid day’s meal. Even without the tattoo and his
explanation, it was easy to pick out the closet liberal of the bunch.
He didn’t wait for me to ask a
prodding question to insert in his opinion. At the age of 80 plus years; Thomas
was a retired government employee. He was the one voice of moderate to liberal dissent
amongst this lunch time gathering.
“I was born when Herbert
Hoover was finishing out his term, in 1932,” he continued. “My father by then
was out of the mines and worked as a letter-carrier for the post office. He
worked hard, but he had a secure income during those years of suffering for
most people. Just as now, the best jobs for the 99% were the secure civil
service jobs; only now even they are not so secure!”
“Roosevelt was a realist and
saw that government intervention was necessary to save capitalism, but he had
an ignorant Republican Party in opposition, just as now. I see a lot of our
current President as much like FDR. The 1% hated Roosevelt, but he did what he
had to do, same as the man there now (President Obama) did with his stimulus,
got us moving again, to clean up the mess Bush left him, like the one Hoover
left for FDR. Anyone who today cannot see how much better off the economy is
than it was in 2008, well, they are just a fool.”
I asked his opinion on the
media’s treatment of Obama, in particular FOX News. “FOX News hates Obama,” he
said, “because they are owned by Republican Rupert Murdock who hires right wing
radicals to express his viewpoints. That is also a wise financial move because
they can get 40+% of America's population to watch their news. People like to
watch news that reflects their view points. That is why I watched MSNBC during
the elections, because I couldn't stand President Bush and the pundits on that
channel shared my outlook. Obama bashers galore, they see things very
different. I see the economy improving after two terms of bad politics and I
believe that nearly everything Obama is doing is paying off well. FOX News is
behind the rowdy participants at town hall meetings on health care with hosts
Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck encouraging civil disruptions in the debates.
Democrats debate, Republicans rile and lie and twist the truth.”
Awkward stoned silence greeted
the completion of his dissenting opinion. For the non-conforming outspoken liberals
of the coffee shops and cafeterias of today’s small towns, it is good looks
cannot kill.
“It is hard to unring a bell.”
Anonymous
I will make no pretense to be
impartial on this section. FOX News is a joke and an embarrassment to anyone
who has a shred of professional journalistic training. FOX News sells hate, and
they do it for ratings. It is that simple.
Since Roger Ailes founded this
farce, FOX News’ motto has been “fair and balanced." What a fraud. In no
believable stretch of journalistic ethics does this network truly aim for
fair-and-balanced coverage. When the obvious becomes too obvious for even FOX
News to deny, their defenders go into the defensive mode of pointing to media
bias with a liberal slant in the mainstream media. "We're the
counterweight. They have a liberal agenda, and we tell the other side of the
story," conservative defenders will counter argue.
Fine, but drop the fair and
balanced fraud. Fairness and balance would seem to imply telling all sides of a
story, not merely one side. Even FOX patriarch Canadian financier Rudolph
Murdoch acknowledged that Fox News' mission is to push a conservative agenda,
giving America, “somebody who tells the other side of the story."
Having a conservative or
liberal slant is a tradition rooted deeply in the bedrock of our democracy, the
First Amendment. When the media adopts a liberal or a conservative slant, as
long as it is portrayed clearly as an editorial and not a news report; then the
consumer can make up their own mind. But, as the liberal media source Mother
Jones News points out, “Fox News has always tried to have it both ways:
function as a conservative organization but claim it is not (at least when it
comes to its news reporting, as opposed to its right-wing-to-the-core
Beck-O'Reilly-and-Hannity line-up). This ruse has not been much of a secret.
But in trying to defend FOX News with this fair-and-balanced shtick is bunk.”
Telling the conservative side of the story may well be a legitimate endeavor,
but isn't a balanced one.
Much has been made of supposed
research that shows that those who list FOX News as their primary source of
political news have IQs that average 20 points lower than those who do not
drink the FOX Kool Aid. Fair? Is it valid? Perhaps; perhaps not, but there is
an interesting analogy found in the researcher’s conclusion:
I have a conservative friend
whom I will vouch for having an IQ well above average. He also makes a
commendable attempt to watch multiple news sources, including FOX News. I chide
him that every time he switches his TV channel from C-Span to FOX News, he raises
the average IQ of both audiences.
“If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same
race, creed and color, we would find some other causes for prejudice by noon.
George Aiken
Is it Racial?
Is it a mere coincidence that the
first black president of the United States is so maligned by white males’ in
conservative states? In all the conversations I held, with hundreds of white
males who despised President Obama, never once did I find one single
conservative who would admit to being a racist. Most would become extremely
defensive when I questioned them about Obama’s race and their dislike for him.
It is no longer cool to be a racist. “I am not racist, but……” or “I know some
of them who are good people, so see I am not afraid of them just because they
are black;” became the norm for the start of another discussion on “that damn
Obama.”
I was confronted by whites
often with the argument that the real racists were the blacks who voted for
Obama simple because he was black. It was true that Obama in both 2008 and 2012
received over 90% of the black vote. It was also true that both of his
successful candidacies was dependent upon, and received, a large block of white
votes. But if it is true that blacks voted for Obama based on skin color, would
not reciprocal logic hold sway; that whites voted against Obama because of skin
color? No, I was told by one staunch conservative in Texas County, MO. Whites,
according to his theory, looked at the issues and voted against Obama based on facts
and disagreement with his policy. Blacks, however, just looked at his skin
color and voted strictly on race. That in itself, in my opinion, is a classic
example of racist thinking. Worn out, I learned to keep this nugget of wisdom
in my hip pocket. It always fell on deft and defensive ears.
She saw the country as being
misled down the road of misinformation the right wing pundits pitched. “The
words from the right-wing media and FOX News got out of hand and were giving in
to all the rumors that he's a secret Muslim, the controversy over his pastor,
out to destroy America and such. Some of it was religion and politics. Right-wing
Christians have this ridiculous obligation to always vote Republican because
that's God's side. Some would give messages that Obama is the Anti-Christ or
he's the most "liberal" President ever. Misinformed policies would be
fed by the right wing media to stir up the good ole boys out in Bubba Land,
such as, ‘He's going to take away your guns’, and with healthcare, ‘He's a
Communist/Socialist/Fascist/Hitler/etc.…’ or ‘he's going to kill Grandma.’
Facts were never given to back up any of these ridiculous claims, but they were
not needed. The conservative voters heard what they wanted to hear, and yes
racism played a major role.”
When debating the merits of
the current President, I would often be put on the defensive myself, forced to
defend “your boy in the White House,” as one angry conservative in rural
Missouri referred to the President. “This is nothing personal,” Robbie, a
Boulder, CO (yes, there are conservatives in this well-known cradle of liberal
think) native told me, “We want only for Obama's policies to fail. If he were
developing policies that would work successfully toward our system of
capitalism, we would all be rooting for his success. He, however, is fomenting
policies that will work not in our current system, but rather in a socialized
system. Remember now, Obama is very Marxist oriented and if he fails in his
endeavors, we all benefit.”
After three years on the road
it pains me to admit, for I see it as a real tarnishing of our nation as a land
that supports fair play, but many conservatives would like to see Obama fail,
with no regard for the pain it will inflict upon their fellow Americans. Their
elected political leaders on the right have made the undercutting of anything
“Obama” a zealous crusade of the bizarre.
As I was told by one wise and self-professed
Republican women from Saratoga, WY, “For some reason, people who are supposed
to be so patriotic and care about America believe that if he fails, then their
point would be proven. Their point is? Your guess is as good as mine. For my
fellow Republicans to do all they can to sabotage our elected president,
disregarding how it hurts our nation, shames me.”
Taking a pragmatic view of
Obama’s second four-year term, following the 2012 election; she gave this
advice to her fellow Republicans: “I think we all should try to realize that he
won, regardless of our choice. If we really want this country to succeed, we
would unite behind our president and support our country. It's going to take
way more than President Obama to ‘ruin’ this country and I really don't think
that's going to happen. He has good ideas, good intentions, and a good plan of
action. Why fight that, just because you have a personal problem with a man you
don't personally know?”
It is human nature to resist
change. I knew many of unquestionable character in the 1960’s, good men and
women whose response to the civil rights movement at that point in time would
be viewed in the light of today’s acceptance of diversity as non-apologetic
racist. The 1960’s winds of change blew both too quick and too strong for
many. With Obama today, when filtering
in his 2008 landmark election, I would throw out this possibility for
discussion: Many conservative whites today are not afraid of Obama, but more of
what he represents - change.
It is a simple question: does
President Obama’s black skin and its novelty in our history of leadership play
a role in white dislike of him? How can you logically argue it does not?
Since Barack Obama was elected
president, six years prior, only 10 percent of the nations’ voters believe that
race relations in America have gotten better, according to a New York Times/CBS
Poll published in August of 2014. Seventeen percent of blacks and 8 percent of
whites believe race relations have improved under Obama. Thirty-five percent of
Americans believe that race relations have gotten worse in the Obama era --
including 40 percent of whites and 21 percent of blacks.
Fifty-two percent of Americans
polled said that race relations have stayed about the same.
The election of the first
African American president in history was supposed to improve race relations.
So what happened?
According to Lisa, who
introduced herself as a white Mississippi Southern Baptist Christian, the blame
lies totally at the feet of the President and his advisors, who have pulled
over a massive fraud on the American people. In 2013, in her lifelong home of
Biloxi, MS, right after the inauguration of Obama’s second term, she told me,
“Obama is the Great Divider. From the media-sanctioned manufactured crisis of
the ‘war on women’, to his venomous rhetoric towards the wealthy ‘not paying
their fair share’, Obama has mastered the art of division. Why else was his
entire 2012 campaign waged with relentless character attacks and insults
against Romney? He carefully sorts people into those who depend on government
programs and those who want to safeguard their wealth against another tax grab.
Energy is either the good, green, and clean stuff he favors or it's the
"dirtier air, dirtier water" that the Republicans want. In fact,
almost all of Obama's political success owes to his addiction for dividing
people into camps and appealing to one group by diminishing the other. Reagan,
the Great Communicator, fostered prosperity for everyone. Obama, the Great
Divider, promotes taking the wealth from the few and giving to the many.”
I give the floor to James, a
Northeasterner Snowbird from upstate New York wintering in Florida, for the
Democratic retort: “What exactly do you people not understand about the phrase
re-elected? The hate and vitriol of the people who don't like him says
everything about them - and nothing about Obama. Obama is doing what the
majority of voters who elected him in 2008 - and who re-elected Obama in 2012 -
put him there to do.”
“If you wanted Mitt Romney, or
Ron Paul to win - and you cannot accept that the majority of voters did not
agree with you - then that is your issue or your problem. See if you can't be a
bit more of an adult - and an American - about it. The people spoke in November
2008 and again in November, 2012. Now get on with your life. If you can't -
again - that is your issue.”
I met Dave in a sea side café
in Santa Anna, CA. He told me he was white but had mixed half siblings and a
black step father; just the kind of blended family that today has become more
accepted, but a generation ago would have been considered socially risky. “I
think the problems that have been around forever have been exposed more under
Obama. Maybe African-Americans have gotten a louder voice with someone who is
half black in office but the bigots have definitely gotten louder. They see
their hateful way of life being threatened and are lashing out. Either way, we
need to remember we are all people and all need to respect each other and love
each other because of and in spite of our differences.”
Historically, progress in any
area of American society has never moved in a constant direction. It is the
nature of a democracy to move haltingly, but also the character of the American
spirit to move in the progressive direction of inclusion. Also, historically,
in progressive movements of inclusion, there has
always been two steps forward
and then one step backwards. But in due time, progressive inclusion in the
United States does move in a consistently positive direction. The resulting
diversity gives our nation strength and revalidates the universal respect for
the quest of the Great American Dream.
I like to tease my
conservative friends that they have backed the losing horse in every social
issue this country has faced since Reconstruction. Racial minorities,
immigrants, women’s suffrage, voting rights, rights for the handicapped, Title
IX workplace rights; and now gay rights; the historical trajectory is, over-due
time, consistently progressive and liberal.
The late great folk singer Jim
Croche was not known as one of the 1960’s protest voices. His songs were mostly
ballads and love songs. However, he did compose one political statement through
his music. By chance I stumbled upon it, titled Which Way Are You Going? The song was released after Croche’s 1973
death - an eerie lecture from the grave to the hypocrites.
I was amazed at how the lyrics
state the very point of inclusion and personal responsibility we struggle with
today. He describes the old and new America so accurately. A great musician and
a great man.
Which way are you going?
Which way are you going?
Which side will you be on?
Will you stand and watch
While all the seeds of hate
are sown
Will you stand with those who
say
"Let his will be
done?"
One hand on the bible
One hand on the gun
Which way are you looking
Is it hard to see?
Do you say
"What's wrong for him is
not wrong for me?"
You walk the streets
Righteousness but you refuse
to understand
You say you love the baby
Then you crucify the man
Everyday things are changing
Words once honored turned to
lies
People wondering, can you
blame them
It's too far to run and too
late to hide
Now you turn your back on
All the things that you used
to preach
Now it's, "Let him live
in freedom, if he lives like me"
Well, your light has changed,
confusion rains
What have you become
All your olive branches turned
to spears
When your flowers turned to
guns
The tenure of our first
minority President and the right wing media’s obsession and fixation with stirring
racial tension represents a not so feel good American moment. However, our
proud history predicts that now that diversity in our nation’s highest elected
office has finally arrived, the division we now struggle and attempt to cope
with will in due time prove to be more of a speed bump than a blockade in our
nation’s relentless and inexorable drive to equality.
So much for a far off some day
racial utopia, let’s talk reality. The 2014 conservative white male: loudly
proclaiming to be neither racist nor afraid of blacks, but still, always with a
solid stash of second amendment rights; just in case.
2 comments:
First time that I've read your blog. This is good and important work. We really need more dialogue without screaming at each other. Keep it up!
thanks for reading
Post a Comment